Poll: Do You Want to See a Craig/Loftus Debate?

Okay, Okay, I'm putting some pressure on Bill to debate me. Why not? I've put up a poll question about this to the right. Comment below as you wish. Here are the results:

A Debate With Dr. Matthew Flannagan is in the Works

He and his wife Madeleine will be in the states as announced right here. They have a few days open so I asked if he'd want to debate me. It looks like a new campus group at Purdue in South Bend, Indiana, may host it with the tentative topic, "Is Christianity True?" If that doesn't work out we're looking for any group anywhere who wants to sponsor it. He and I have sparred back and forth before as you can see right here. At this late date we'll need people who can come up with some sponsorship money. That will make this event happen and get it taped for YouTube. If you are so inclined please help us out. And check back for more details. It's only a month away. I plan to trash him. ;-)

Why William Lane Craig Refuses to Debate Me

An unnamed friend asked him why he won't debate me via email and a volunteer responded on his behalf saying 1) that I'm not qualified, which is as good of an excuse as any; and 2) *Cough* now get this, he doesn't think it would be good for me spiritually. Bill did tell me that it wouldn't be appropriate to debate me, a former student, and he did tell me that he still has hope for me. Yeah, right, if I have not committed the unforgivable sin then no one has. Christian believers don't even know their own Bible, which tells us that the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a SPEAKING SIN! *ahem* I deny that Jesus was sent by God, that he's the Son of God, and I deny the Holy Spirit. So how about now Bill, since there's no hope for me. ;-) And why does that even matter? What is Bill afraid of? He's afraid of introducing me to his fan base. This is what I really think. He's scared of me. So the next time Bill challenges Richard Dawkins to a debate just remind him of lil' ol' me.

DC Ranked 2nd Among SBL's Biblical Bloggers

But take a look at how many times I post something compared to others, below:

September Biblical Studies Carnival

I have something in this carnival under Secular Biblical Studies, where you read: Last month’s number one biblioblogger John Loftus provides a link to a debate between Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Bart Ehrman: Does the Bible Provide an Adequate Answer to the Problem of Suffering? And to an article by Professor Keith Parsons: “Are Supernatural Hypotheses Testable?” Finally, John discusses The Deuteronomist and King Josiah. Professor Hector Avalos has one asserting that ‘True’ religion begats violence. Check it out!

Atheists...What if You're Wrong?

Militant Atheist?

I Am An Unfriendly Not-So-Famous Atheist Who is Not Preaching to the Choir

When it comes to famous atheists (i.e., those who have been on the cover of Time Magazine as but one example), many Christians will attack their work and them as people. When it comes to atheists who are not so famous, whether or not many Christians attack their work and them as people depends. It depends on whether or not they are considered friendly or unfriendly to Christianity, and it depends on whether or not they are "preaching to the choir." I find that there are several books written by unfriendly non-famous atheists who preach to the choir that get many glowing reviews from other atheists but are ignored by Christians because they don't consider their works to be informed.

I am an unfriendly non-so-famous atheist who is not preaching to the choir. ;-) So my work and person gets attacked more than other non-famous atheists. I would hope atheists would understand this. Many do.

The Argument From Christian Diversity: There is No Such a Thing as “Mere Christianity”

[Written by John W. Loftus] That Christianity is a diverse phenomena cannot be doubted. But it is diverse not only in the number of denominations but also within each denomination itself (follow the links):

Is this the Best Possible World and does God have Free Will?

Let us assume the triple properties of the classical approach to God: that he is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. In terms of the classic Problem of Evil argument, if there is too much evil in the world, God knows what to do about it, is powerful enough to do it, and is loving enough to want to do something about it. This argument has been around since the days of Epicurus and still remains one of the most hotly debated theological issues in modern times, causing many believers to leave the fold due to its evidential power.

A Christian Mother: "May You Rot in Hell"

A man was sentenced for molesting a boy who received what justice demanded, putting him behind bars thus keeping our boys safe. But I was struck by this outburst in the courtroom from the victim's Christian mother found in the full version of the story. Yes, it's understandable that she would say what she did. But what is it with that particular phrase? Upon further reflection and with some cooling down time, does she really wish this on her son's molester? Is any crime deserving of an eternal hell? Isn't the molester to be considered more like he's sick than evil? Perhaps he was molested and damaged as a kid himself? And would this molester's own mother ever wish an eternal hell on her son? How could a loving mother ever do that? Now it's said that a loving God doesn't send people to hell, people choose it. If this man ends up in hell did he choose to go there? Does anyone have this kind of self-hatred who would wish to go to hell with eyes wide open? And what's with the Christian mother's hell wish itself? If people choose to go to hell then what good does it do to wish it upon them? Have fun with this.

On Making A Rational Choice About Religion

Let's say you were shopping for the best car made. Your father brought you up as a die-hard Chevy lover but now you want to seriously find which car is the best one out there. How would you go about doing it? What are the criteria for what is to be considered the best car? There would be objective criteria but there would also be subjective person-related criteria. Are there any similarities here with choosing the best religion? Dissimilarities? Is choosing the best car analogous to how people search for the one true religion? In what ways? Which religions and sects within them would you seriously consider? Why not consider them all?

Then consider whether everyone could agree on which car is the best car made. Of course they couldn't, even with some agreed upon objective criteria. But let's say everyone who makes the wrong car choice will be cast into hell for an eternity? ;-) Sound unfair? Sure it does. Then why isn't it unfair when it comes to choosing the best religion? Have fun with this.

Get Educated About Homosexuality

An Omniscient God Solves All Problems and Makes Faith Unfalsifiable

It doesn't matter what the particular problem is for a person's faith. Having an omniscient God concept solves it. It could be the intractable and unanswerable problem of ubiquitous suffering; or how a man could be 100% God and 100% man without anything leftover, or left out; or how the death of a man on a cross saves us from sins; or why God's failure to better communicate led to massive bloodshed between Christians themselves. It just doesn't matter. God is omniscient. He knows why. He knows best. Therefore punting to God's omniscience makes faith pretty much unfalsifiable, which allows believers to disregard what reason tells them by ignoring the probabilities.

I call this the Omniscience Escape Clause (read the link). There is only one way to convince believers in an omniscient God that their faith is false. They must be convinced their faith is impossible before they will consider it to be improbable, and that's an utterly unreasonable standard since the arguments to the contrary cannot hope to overcome the Omniscience Escape Clause. So think on this: Given that there are so many different faiths with the same escape clause let believers seriously entertain that their own God might equally be false. Sure, an omniscient God might exist (granted for the sake of argument), but how we judge whether or not he exists cannot rely over and over on his omniscience since that's exactly how other believers defend their own culturally inherited faith. Reasonable people must not have an unfalsifiable faith, and yet an omniscient concept of God makes one's faith pretty much unfalsifiable. But this is not all...

Christians are morally compromised

Christians Need a Gestalt Shift In The Way They See Their Faith

My mentor Dr. James Strauss argued that defending the Christian faith is not necessarily about gaining more knowledge, or more evidence. It's about helping people see things differently. Skeptics who disagree don't accept this of course, but then maybe they were never on the Christian side of the fence. And maybe they don't understand why they deconverted away from it either. Seeing things differently demands a Gestalt shift, a paradigm change in the fundamental way people view something. It can be facilitated with more knowledge and evidence of course, but as with any enculturated or brainwashed mind, it might not produce a deconversion. It demands a willingness to see the Christian faith differently, and so that which forces them to see it differently is probably almost always person related. Check this description out, along with these images.

My Other Mentor, James D. Strauss

You know I earned my Th.M. under the mentoring of William Lane Craig, with whom half of my credit hours were under his teaching in the Philosophy of Religion. Here's the rest of the story. My other mentor prior to my time with Dr. Craig was Dr. James Strauss (follow the link), with whom I took the maximum number of credit hours in two Master's programs under his teaching. Strauss was the one responsible for my passion for apologetics and the philosophy of religion, and it is his method of apologetics I use in reverse when debunking Christianity, as I said in my book. Students of his were called Straussites, because we imitated him, quoted him as the authority, adopted his attitudes, and argued the way he did. He lit me up like a firecracker. He is a one of a kind guy, knowledgeable in a host of subjects. I remember having different lecturers come to speak at our seminary who then sat in his classes and said they were amazed at his breadth of knowledge. In the picture above he is with Dr. Craig at my graduation from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), June 14, 1985.

I've Finally Arrived. Now I Have a Wikipedia Article About Me.

Link. Is this a good thing? ;-)

Atheists and Sex Offenders

My Brief Response to "God's Word Never Changes"

A letter to the editor appeared in my local newspaper written by Ken Blinco, whoever he is. Since he expressed what a lot of Christians think, I responded:

The Deuteronomist and King Josiah

[Written by John W. Loftus]Here's just a brief introduction to the JEDP theory. The D stands for the Deuteronomist author/editor. That the Deuteronomist had a very unusual fondness for King Josiah, who ruled over Judah in the South from about 640-609 BCE, is found in many ways.

Is My Book Autobiographical?

There are a lot of people who are reading my anthologies right now who have not read my magnum opus, Why I Became an Atheist. If you see any review of it on Amazon or anywhere else where the person says it is autobiographical you can be sure that person has never read it. Yes, it is in parts, but that is not how I would describe it. Just a heads up. Cheers.

An Evangelical Attempts to Answer My Anthology "The Christian Delusion"

[Written by John W. Loftus] Look at the accolades for the new book Biblical Christianity: Truth or Delusion? It purports to be "A Refutation of Contemporary Arguments Against the Christian Faith, with Specific Reference to the Recent Book, The Christian Delusion," by Mark M. Hanna. Reminds me what I wrote right here. I guess we just are not informed, right? If we were "better" informed then we'd believe, right? Balderdash!

The Real God

For corroboration see this.

How Christian Apologists Work

If you read Christian works you'll see something very interesting that should tell us all they are wrong. Here's what I see. First off, there are more apologists authors than there are skeptics. So they can write five or even twenty essays and books for every one that skeptics write (and produce more YouTube videos too). There are no atheist universities but there are a plethora of Christian colleges and seminaries that support these authors while they do their research. So these apologists and philosophers refer to each other's works. If a skeptic hasn't read a particular philosophical or Biblical work (which are being spit out at an unbelievable rate) the apologist can point to something and say if we read it then our objection would fall to the ground.